Evaluation & Development of Teaching: Continous formative assessment

Markku Hannula

Three basic types of assessment

Diagnostic assessment (before teaching) Formative assessment (during teaching) Summative assessment (after teaching)

Formative assessment
self-reflective process that intends to promote student attainment (Crooks, 2001). the bidirectional process between teacher and student to enhance, recognize and respond to the learning (Cowie and Bell, 1999)
> obseravtion in the classroom

the feedback from learning activities is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet the learner's needs. (Black and Wiliam, 1998)

Constructivism and assessment

Changes in learning and teaching approach
Student centered Teacher as facilitator Learning to learn

Changes are reflected in assessment

From summative (exams) to formative Feedback for development

Elements in formative assessment

Observation Reflection Feedback Student reflection Student self-regulation

Questioning
Moyer & Milewicz (2002) gave prospective elementary education teachers a task to interview individual pupils on mathematical concepts and later to reflect the audiorecorded interview. They identified three categories of questions used by the preservice teachers:
1.
2.

3.

checklisting, where the interviewer proceeded from one question to the next with little regard for the childs response instructing rather than assessing, which included (a) leading questions that direct the childs response, and (b) abandoning questioning and teaching the concept; and Probing and follow-up, where different types of questions were used to invite or further investigate the childs answer.

... is a skill to develop

when open-ended questioning is used and there are many right answers, the learning environment becomes complex and less predictable as teachers attempt to interpret and understand childrens responses (Moyer and Milewiczs 2002, p. 296). preservice teachers have difficulty interpreting and responding to unexpected answers from children (Moyer & Milewicz 2002, p. 296)

... is a skill to develop

when open-ended questioning is used and there are many right answers, the learning environment becomes complex and less predictable as teachers attempt to interpret and understand childrens responses (Moyer and Milewiczs 2002, p. 296). preservice teachers have difficulty interpreting and responding to unexpected answers from children (Moyer & Milewicz 2002, p. 296) Task: Ask the peer sitting next to you an openended question about assessment. Try to interpret and rephrase the response. Check if your peer accepts your interpretation.

What do you see?

What do you see? Try to notice something new.

Focus of attention
The more aware I can be of what students or teachers see, of what they are stressing and ignoring, the more help I can be in offering different foci for their attention. (Mason 1998, p. 248)

Teachers skills to observe

(Philipp & Sowder, 2002)

novice and expert teachers have different competencies in observing mathematics teaching episodes.
prospective elementary teachers attend more to mathematics content teachers and mathematics educators focused more on teacher and student.

Teachers skills to observe

(Philipp & Sowder, 2002)

novice and expert teachers have different competencies in observing mathematics teaching episodes.
prospective elementary teachers attend more to mathematics content teachers and mathematics educators focused more on teacher and student.

Task: Watch a video clip on 3 students working in a group. What do you see?

Assessing groupwork (Dunne & Bennett, 1990)

Assessment of learning
Understanding of task Which contributions lead forward

Process skills
Ability to co-operate Dialogue, who helps whom, is help aiding Efficient use of resources available

Affective domain: attitudes, motivation, enjoyment

The level of involvement of individuals in the task Free riders? (can be high achievers) Time spent off task, body language

Evaluate also the task, to develope your ability to select, design and modify tasks

Teachers skills to observe

(Philipp & Sowder, 2002)

Task: Watch the video clip once more. Can you see something new in it?

Feedback
In order for a student to benefit from from feedback in academic tasks, the student must know i. What good performance is ii. How current performance relates to good performance iii. How to act to close the gap between current and good performance (Sadler, 1989; according to Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006)

Self-regulation
has been presented as a generic term used for a number of phenomena, each of which is captured by a different control system. In our judgment, self-regulation is a system concept that refers to the overall management of ones behavior through interactive processes between these different control systems (attention, metacognition, motivation, emotion, action, and volition control). (Boekaerts and Niemivirta, 2000, p. 445)

Self-regulated learning (Lemos, 1999)

Learners set their own learning goals Learners monitor, regulate and control their own learning, motivation and behaviour
Need feedback; facilitate monitoring

Student goals may be different from teacher goals (Boekarets, 1999)

Assessment & self-regulation

(Nicol & Macfarlane 2006; based on Butler & Winne, 1995) Teacher set task
Domain knowledge Strategy knowledge Motivation al beliefs Processes internal to student Student goals
Tactics & strategies

Internal learning outcomes

Paths of internal feedback

Self-regulatory processes (cognition, motivation & behaviour)

External feedback

Externally observable outcomes

Seven principles of good feedback practice: Facilitating self-regulation

(Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Clarify what good performance is Facilitate self-assessment Deliver high quality feedback information Encourage teacher and peer dialogue Encourage positive motivation and selfesteem 6. Provide opportunities to close the gap 7. Use feedback to improve teaching

Clarify what good performance is

Students can monitor and control their own progress only if they know what is exopected of them
Explicate goals, criteria, expected standards Understanding good performance often requires mastery of the topic Assessment criteria are sometimes difficult to explicate

Make sure your assessment practice is aligned with the explicated goals

Facilitate the development of selfassessment (reflection) in learning

Provide (more) structured opportunities for self-monitoring, e.g. self-assessment tasks
Explicate what feedback they want from teacher Identify strengths and weaknesses of own work before handing the work in Selecting work for portfolio

Opportunities to evaluate and provide feedback on peer work

Deliver high quality information to students about their learning

Provide feedback before it is too late to use it Focus on improving process In addition to strengths and weaknesses offer corrective advice Direct students to higher order learning goals Praise, not only criticism Relate feedback to goals, standards or criteria Dont flood feedback

Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning

Dialogue is often needed to clarify feedback
Goals, expectations, how to reach goals

Small group discussions about feedback Peer dialogue enhances sense of self-control over learning
No judgmental element

Encourage positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem

Respect the individual High stakes assessments influence orientation
Performance goals/mastery goals

Grading may be less effective than feedback comments

Grading has especially negative effects on low-ability students self-esteem Delay grading after feedback has been processed

Praising ability or intelligence may lead to beliefs of fixed intelligence

>Learned helplessness (Dweck, 1999) >Praise effort and strategic behaviours

Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance
Feedback should influence process and product Introduce multi-stage assessment with feedback after each level Allocate time for commenting drafts or rewriting selected pieces after feedback

Use feedback to improve teaching

Diagnostic tests Reflective practitioner

Developing oneself as a teacher

Teaching is fundamentally about attention, producing shifts in the locus, focus, and structure of attention, and these can be enhanced for others by working on ones own awareness. Mason 1998, p. 244.

Reflective practitioner (Schn, 1983)

Reflective practice is a continuous process and involves the learner considering critical incidents in his or her life's experiences. Reflective practice involves thoughtfully considering one's own experiences in applying knowledge to practice.

Moments of reflection (Schn 1983)

Reflection-for-action
Before teaching, clarify your goal and methods

Reflection-in-action
Reflective reacting in classroom Difficult (last phase of development)

Reflection-on-action
After teaching Interpret and analyze what has happened

References
Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998), Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2): 139-149 Boekaerts, M. 1999. Self-regulated learning: where we are today. International Journal of Educational Research 31, 445-457 Boekaerts, M. and Niemivirta, M.: 2000, Self-regulated learning: Finding a balance between learning goals and ego-protective goals, in M. Boekaerts, P.R. Pintrich and M. Zeidner (eds.), Handbook of SelfRegulation, Academic Press, San Diego, CA, pp. 417450. Cowie, B., & Bell, B. (1999), A model of formative assessment in science education, Assessment in Education, 6: 101-116 Crooks, T. (2001), The Validity of Formative Assessments, Paper presented to the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Leeds, 13-15 September Dunne, E. & Bennett, N. 1990. Talking and learning in groups. UK: Macmillan. Dweck, C. 1999. Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality and development. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.

References continued

Lemos, M.S. 1999. Students goals and self-regulation in the classroom. International Journal of Educational Research 31, 471-486 Mason, J. 1998. Enabling teachers to be real teachers: Necessary levels of awareness and structure of attention. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education 1, 243267. Moyer, P. S. & Milewicz, E. 2002. Learning to question: Categories of questioning used by preservice teachers during diagnostic mathematics interviews. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education 5, 293315 Nicol, D.J. & Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning: A model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education, Vol 31(2), pp.199-218 Philipp, R. A.. & Sowder, J. T. 2002. Using eye-tracking technology to determine the best use of video with prospective and practicing teachers. In A.D. Cockburn & E. Nardi (Eds.), In A. Cockburn & E. Nardi (Eds.). Proceedings of the26th Annual Conference for the Psychology of Mathematics Education (Vol. 4, pp. 233-240). Norwich: PME. Sadler, D.R. 1989. Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science 18, 119 144. Schn, D. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.